CBD & South East Light Rail

[hornetfig]

DSC07447 (Small).jpegShuttle running today between Chalmers St and Royal Randwick, as service LX, around 35 minute turnaround. Departure about 11.30 left empty.

General Admission was cancelled at Randwick yesterday (Boxing Day has been really quiet at Randwick racecourse for years anyway) and the place was deserted. I guess no one told Transdev.

[STMPainter2018]

Gosh, I feel for bus drivers being subjected to this patronising rubbish. So much for being an experienced professional driver who is capable of taking instruction on an informed adult level. I can see the same syndrome as with light rail drivers who are merely drones of the control room. Very likely many of the chair-polishers who come up with this would be unable to do the job themselves and simply project their own inadequacies onto their staff.

Ok so this has proven to be a much bigger source of complaints on another forum but since it's here, I need to ask this question: Why does any of this actually matter? I'm genuinely asking: why does stuff stuff like this, along with other inconveniences related to the operation of public transport, disadvantage the human race to such a great extent that it calls for our outrage? Yes bureaucracy sucks and patronising XXX like this is a pain, but from an the overall, worldwide perspective where greater tragedies are occurring, why should we care about this? Cause I honestly don't. I'm just so de-sensitised to this crap and the people that complain about it that I don't think it's worth the outcry. It's frankly a non-issue as far as I'm concerned. I really don't care. If one just so happens to think that THIS is a blight on humanity, then must have have a very privileged life.

Also, for all this talk about light rail drivers being "drones" of the control room, while not inaccurate, I can honestly say from enough trips on the system, on top of what drivers themselves have said previously on social media, that they generally tend to think for themselves anyway. Not by a lot yes, but micromanagement can only go so far; it can't wipe out human intelligence for good. Probably helps that a lot of the drivers visited the Sydney Tramway Museum beforehand and got an insight into how the original Sydney network ran: https://www.sydneytramwaymuseum.com.au/ ... it-to-stm/

And BTW, this idea that Australia is a laidback, classless society that scoffs at rules likes these is nothing but a myth. If anything following the rules is part of our national identity: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-22/ ... n/11623566

[Swift]

Hmm I think Australians (or at least a "certain" segment of them) don't like following rules. Quiet carriages on the central coast line anyone?
While your post has a tone of being irritated, it actually makes points to digest without ad hominem jibes.
I was bracing for another out of control rave.
Good to see progress.

[boronia]

DSC07447 (Small).jpegShuttle running today between Chalmers St and Royal Randwick, as service LX, around 35 minute turnaround. Departure about 11.30 left empty.

General Admission was cancelled at Randwick yesterday (Boxing Day has been really quiet at Randwick racecourse for years anyway) and the place was deserted. I guess no one told Transdev.

I guess TfNSW would have arranged the service, maybe no-one had told them. Or they just decided to run it anyway. Much like those empty shuttles to the Moore Park car park.

[tonyp]

Why does any of this actually matter?

I didn't actually make a big issue of this in my small post, you have. I merely said that I feel sorry for bus drivers having to put up with such patronising. What was interesting in the film was some little insights into the infrastructure and general lost opportunities through poor thinking and design.

This Daniel Bowen photo often comes to mind when I think of Sydney buses. I guess they will at least "solve" that one by getting rid of artics. It's a well-trodden path, starting in 1958-1961, for government bus operations in Sydney. Squeeze 'em off, we don't really need them.



Even with all the stuff-ups, reinstating trams still looks good on balance in cases where metro might be overkill.

[Linto63]

Shock horror, a big crowd wanting to leave Bondi Beach on a summer afternoon. What should we do, waste a couple of billion on a tramline? Not going to happen.

[tonyp]

The overall demand along that corridor is greater than buses can provide for, but not great enough to justify a train line. What other mode do you suggest that has an intermediate capacity between these two modes? Ferries? You're expressing the exact thinking that prevailed when the tram to bus conversions occurred 60 years ago. Too many to carry? Never mind, squeeze them off, they can drive or walk. I think we've moved a little further up the evolutionary tree since then and we finally have a government that recognises that, so there's a little more chance of something being done than at any time over the last 60 years.

[Linto63]

The overall demand along that corridor is greater than buses can provide for, but not great enough to justify a train line. What other mode do you suggest that has an intermediate capacity between these two modes?

If there is a capacity problem, more buses with a bus lane on Bondi Road will be a far more economical solution than building a light rail line. While it is congested at times, by Sydney standards ii's only mid-range, there are more pressing areas that will be given priority.

You're expressing the exact thinking that prevailed when the tram to bus conversions occurred 60 years ago. Too many to carry? Never mind, squeeze them off, they can drive or walk.

Government didn't squeeze people off public transport, they started using cars in greater numbers of their own volition. And correctly public transport capacity levels were adjusted accordingly.

I think we've moved a little further up the evolutionary tree since then and we finally have a government that recognises that, so there's a little more chance of something being done than at any time over the last 60 years.

Bondi light rail doesn't appear to be on the agenda though, not even gaining a mention in the 2056 plan.

[tonyp]

If there is a capacity problem, more buses with a bus lane on Bondi Road will be a far more economical solution than building a light rail line. While it is congested at times, by Sydney standards ii's only mid-range, there are more pressing areas that will be given priority.

I would think it would be physically impossible, in terms of dwell time, traffic and traffic light cycles, to get closer headways than the ones already applying. They could wring a little more out of it by speeding up turnaround with all-door loading but that's not going to happen. Then there's the long-term plan to get rid of artics which will reduce capacity - and if they use double-deckers, slow it down. The present artic service can move up to about 2,000 pphpd. A double deck service like the B Line moves about 1,500 pphpd and a service of single deck rigids would probably be about 1,200 pphpd, if that. A train line (whether suburban or metro) could move 20,000 to 40,000 pphpd which is far more than necessary. The former Bondi Rd tram moved about 7,000 pphpd, which is likely what a modern replacement light rail service would achieve. When an artic service (which would be the busiest bus service in Sydney and probably in Australia) is pressing up against the ceiling, it's pretty obvious that another solution is needed.

Government didn't squeeze people off public transport, they started using cars in greater numbers of their own volition. And correctly public transport capacity levels were adjusted accordingly.

Bull. Anybody who lived in inner Sydney at the time (which I did) saw what happened immediately when the trams were replaced by buses. And I mean immediately, not some gradual trend that was developing over time. From within a few days - or weeks at most - of the conversions, our residential streets were suddenly filling up with parked cars. These were people who had been using the trams and found they couldn't get on buses because they sailed past their stops jammed full, or they simply didn't want to ride a bus because they were pretty awful in those days compared to the spacious trams. (My father, incidentally, observed the same phenomenon in London when the trams started finishing up there.)

These were observations from all around inner Sydney as the various tram sectors were closed, mainly between 1958 and 1961. The north shore situation was recorded by LA Clark in his book North of the Harbour. There was a fellow in the preservation movement called Dick Jones who worked as a booking office clerk in Milsons Point Station at the time of the North Sydney conversion and he had the job of recording as a graph daily commuter numbers through the station, which were quite low for years. Immediately after the conversion, the graph went vertical because people started driving to Kirribilli and parking and jumping on the train. (Clark argues that DGT deliberately deployed too few buses because they knew that if they used enough to pick up the tram patronage, they would substantially worsen bridge congestion and bring themselves to a halt.) This inner city parkout of residential streets became a bit of a crisis for residents and by the 1970s the residential parking permit system that we know today began to be implemented by inner city councils.

No doubt some of this was down to the general growth in use of cars, but the immediacy and extent of it after the trams closed clearly demonstrate that lack of bus capacity forced people to drive. It has suited the narrative of bus lobbyists over the years to peddle the line that public transport patronage was declining anyway because people were buying and using cars, which was true to some extent, but the fact is that some of this patronage decline was down to reduction in capacity due to growing use of buses. Tramway patronage actually held up quite strongly post-war and many lines were actually profitable. It was the change to buses that was a significant factor in driving patronage down. Bus lobbyists tend to think that buses can do anything and everything (viz. the wondrous claims made for "BRT"), but they have a very emphatic capacity ceiling. That's not actually a criticism, every mode has its limits and its place. It's horses for courses, not one mode "vs" another. (Similarly, a tram is not a substitute for a train.) 333 has pretty-much reached the capacity that a bus system (without all-door loading and multiple doors) is capable of.

[In Transit]

would think it would be physically impossible, in terms of dwell time, traffic and traffic light cycles, to get closer headways than the ones already applying.

Careful Tony - that's exactly what STA unfortunately told Waverley Council a few years ago... when the Bondi Road service had less capacity than today.

There is still plenty of capacity that could be wrung out of the 333 as a bus service, although it would require all door boarding (don't give up on that one yet, despite the prevailing obstinance), better fleet, alterations to stops, bus priority, changes to the poor layout of Bondi Jct Interchange etc - but all of these are significantly more achievable and far cheaper in the short to medium term than light rail. Since the upgrade in 2018 it really only struggles during the height of summer with beach crowds, and that is more to do with operator (and TfNSW) led capability than the mode.

Would light rail be better for the demand in this corridor? Yes, I'd say so. However, is light rail going to unlock as much extra demand as we'd get from investing the same money elsewhere or far less money on bus upgrades on this corridor? No.

[tonyp]

That's good to hear In Transit and I'm heartened by your optimism, but most of those issues with TfNSW, STA and the union are so deeply institutionalised are they really ever going to be unlocked? Some of those items in your list I can see progressing, but all-door-loading and reversal of the ideological insanity of dispensing with artics I'm deeply sceptical about. I rode the Gong Shuttle the other day for the first time for a couple of years and they've really doubled down on concentrating passengers on the front door, with footpath barriers and aggressive signs (and the poor drivers are still made to count the passengers by hitting a button on the ticket machine!). And it's not even an RTBU region. TfNSW really have quite a "thing" about it.

Some would call me negative, I call myself pragmatic. There are all these things that you know can be done and are done with aplomb by systems elsewhere, but you know what the incumbent players are like in your jurisdiction and you pitch suggested actions at the level of the prevailing lowest common denominator accordingly. Like, ten years ago I was working on a design for a Bondi tram line and I intuitively included drive-over platforms as the solution to installing stops along Bondi Rd without having to resume and demolish the expensive real estate along the roadsides (the typical TfNSW approach as we subsequently discovered!). After all, that's the type of platform they use in such situations in Europe and even in Melbourne. A few years later, a consultant suggested exactly the same, but no, that can't be done, TfNSW decreed. So now we look at other alternatives, which aren't as good but they're achievable within the bounds of TfNSW's guidelines and they don't involve trying to change TfNSW's mind. Go with the flow.

In terms of whether the investment in the tram line is value for money for the additional capacity you get out of it, you're right, at present it probably isn't, but then the other major issue enters the analysis - the planning strategy. It's well understood that the potential for development in various areas of Sydney is constrained by the capacity of the local transport system. So we see, for example, growth in Manly-Warringah and SE Sydney heavily constrained because of this, a cause of some planning angst as they are both very attractive areas close to the Sydney CBD compared to the alternative of opening up areas way out west and long commutes. (Leaving aside the current trend to develop cities out west to ameliorate this.) As we know, SE will get a metro on top of the tram to open up the capacity. With "The Peninsula" they've likely decided it's not politically worth stirring up a hornet's nest for a few years yet. With the Bondi corridor, if they insert a new mode with three times the capacity of the bus system, the planners will then open up the potential for redevelopment (even higher density) to make use of that additional capacity and so the line will be justified. Like Warringah, politics might get in the way of course, but the point is that there's no problem readily justifying and ultimately making use of the spare additional capacity. There's constantly growing population and associated activity to be fitted in wherever it can.

[Fleet Lists]

Just watched something on Sky News where it is predicted that it may take up to 5 years before there is any further growth. In the mean time with 1.85 child per woman and no immigration there will be a population decrease.

[Linto63]

Capacity on the 333 only becomes a problem when the beach population decides to decamp en masse at on a Sunday afternoon, same thing happens at other beaches and at Manly with the ferry. State Transit operate (or at least have in previous summers) additional Bondi Junction 333 short workings and X81 express services via Old South Head Road.

[lunchbox]

What does the black-and-white "LM" sign for outbound tram drivers in George Street mean?
867281

[boronia]

Where in George St?

[boronia]

What does the black-and-white "LM" sign for outbound tram drivers in George Street mean?
867281

Apparently it means "Limit of Maneuverability" and is something to do with placing the tram correctly within the platform.

[Jurassic_Joke]

Correct me if I’m wrong but I haven’t seen it in about a week, they seem to have gotten rid of a pretty annoying quirk with the automatic doors since it was brought in in March last year, where with some trams, for one tram out of a coupled set, you’d have the green button light up, not flash, not open (not even if you pressed the button) - you had to wait a few seconds and then they all open!

Never understood that at all and some people would just press the green button out of instinct which defeats the whole purpose of the automatic thing

[Fleet Lists]

https://transportnsw.info/news/2021/get ... 1#homepage
Getting to the University of New South Wales in 2021
Monday 08 February 2021

If you are a student attending UNSW in 2021, make sure to check your public transport options ahead of time.

From Central Station, light rail is the best option to get you there with services on both the L2 and L3 lines running frequently between the Central Chalmers Street Light Rail stop and UNSW campus stops.

You can use the Trip Planner, Opal Travel or other transport apps to plan your full trip or use Departures to see the next departing services from Central Chalmers Street Light Rail to UNSW High Street Light Rail or UNSW Anzac Parade Light Rail.

Remember to always follow the advice of any transport staff on the ground, and don’t forget to tap on and tap off with your Opal card or contactless card or device.

To get concession fares you must check your eligibility, and apply for a Tertiary Concession Entitlement Card.

Transport options from Central Station

L2 light rail services run to Randwick, and stop at UNSW High Street.
L3 light rail services run to Kingsford and stop at UNSW Anzac Parade near NIDA.
Bus services 391, 393 and 395 also run from Eddy Avenue Stand C and alight at Anzac Parade at UNSW.

Transport options for UNSW customers returning to City:

L2 light rail services can be boarded from UNSW High Street towards Circular Quay via the City.
L3 light rail services can be boarded from UNSW Anzac Parade towards Circular Quay via the City.
Customers on Anzac Parade can also catch the following services from the bus stop NIDA, Anzac Parade
Buses towards Central: 391, 393 and 395.
Buses towards Circular Quay, Martin Place and St James: 392, 394, L94, 396, 397 and 399.

[boronia]

But the services don't run to the times shown in trip planners and apps; mostly they are only a couple of minutes out (later), but not really a problem with the 10 minute frequency. With no RTD, the only way of knowing when the next service will actually arrive is to go to a platform.

[tonyp]

It would be a good occasion to introduce live tracking. Surely they've got over the embarrassment of running being all over the place after more than a year. It's not a secret any more.

[Jurassic_Joke]

The original target for real time tracking was “later this year” (back in 2020), so yes they are behind schedule. You kinda to have to wonder what’s so difficult about it?

[Swift]

It's likely the result of reluctance.

[boronia]

I think there was a weekend shutdown a few months ago, partly to "install the equipment"

It would seem that their system cannot match trams to timetabled run numbers, which would be necessary to provide accurate RTD.

[matthewg]

It would seem that their system cannot match trams to timetabled run numbers, which would be necessary to provide accurate RTD.

Not as if the control room doesn't know where the trams are. I don't think a driver could sneeze and the control room not know.

Presumably, their traffic management system doesn't output data in the correct format for the public real-time tracking. I would have thought this would have been in the specification of the original system.
The L1 trams are now run from the same control room and they have public real-time tracking. Presumably, they are still running their own separate consoles and software and are not fully integrated into the rest of the control room systems for the L2/L3 lines.

[hornetfig]

The L1 trams are now run from the same control room

They are? So now when somebody next manages to trip a fire alarm all the lines can go down for half the day whilst operations mosey along to the underground bunker in Moore Park and stand it up?